Conversation

Notices

1. Bob Mottram (bob@social.freedombone.net)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2017 03:47:17 EST Bob Mottram
   On Amazon being an appalling company, I agree. It's not just the warehouse staff who get abused either.
   
   But here's the thing.
   
   This isn't a problem unique to Amazon. Many companies behave in similar ways. They're just not as big or well known as Amazon, and so stories about them don't get into the technology news.
   
   This is a Capitalism problem, not an Amazon problem. It's also about the failure of unions to act in the interests of workers and to adapt their organizing methods to a post-industrial setting.
   1. Maiyannah Bishop (maiyannah@community.highlandarrow.com)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2017 07:43:45 EST Maiyannah Bishop

      in reply to
      @bob Unions tend to be the most corrupt instrument in the whole apparatus.
      1. Verius (verius@community.highlandarrow.com)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2017 09:52:09 EST Verius

         in reply to
         @maiyannah @bob It really depends on the country. But when you have laws that force people to become members of a union, well, yeah, they're going to be corrupt. Unions that don't have a guaranteed income at least have to not be too overtly corrupt in order to sustain said income. Unions also suffer from being even less powerful than governments when it comes to multinational corporations.
         1. Maiyannah Bishop (maiyannah@community.highlandarrow.com)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2017 12:26:51 EST Maiyannah Bishop

            in reply to
            @verius @bob In Canada even many of the voluntary ones are more concerned with their personal income than the actual workers and since they force employers to take only employees from their union the voluntary aspect becomes quite questionable.  If you work in grocery for anything but mom and pa shops or WalMart for instance, youre probably a member of the mega union that regulates them.  And that union is so big and so unavoidable they are corrupt as hell.  I think, like instanxes, theres a size above which a union becomes untenable.
            1. Verius (verius@community.highlandarrow.com)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2017 13:49:57 EST Verius

               in reply to
               @maiyannah @bob If a union can force you to only hire workers from that union your laws are fscked up. Of course you can bet the unions wrote the laws through their political friends.
               1. Bob Jonkman (bobjonkman@gs.jonkman.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 06-Dec-2017 14:34:01 EST Bob Jonkman

                  in reply to
                  That's what we have in Canada. Some companies where the workers are unionized are allowed to hire workers only from the union. Those companies are called "closed shops". It happens especially in public service organizations (municipalities, provincial organizations). The "closed shop" rule is commonly circumvented by hiring independent contractors for long durations.